Three weeks of horrible weather have passed. You always know that the weather must have been horrible when
Thames Water lifts the otherwise nearly permanent
hosepipe ban. They did this
yesterday. But in my part of the world for the first time this summer a longer period of stable weather is on the horizon.
However, if you live in England, then I am afraid you are in for many more days of deluge. The
wettest
June ever recorded in British history isn't yet over for you, I'm afraid.
But I will set out tomorrow again for the third voyage...
Today I am not fussing a lot about getting around lake Constance
again; onto the Swiss motorway, a hop over the Rhine river
and then onto the Austrian motorway. The fun begins when I leave the motorway near
Wangen in the Bavarian
Allgäu region. As you can see in the tracklog I am traversing the heart of the Allgäu region, heading south of
Munich
towards Austria. In the evening I find myself just a few miles east of Munich. It will appear that so close to the big city no one
bothers to run any places to stay for the night. I check a few hotels, but they all are in the middle of ugly, noisy towns. Finally
I call a farmhouse B & B in the tiny hamlet of Frauendorf (literally "the village of women", I have no idea what I am supposed
to do there...)
They have a room, 35 Euros with breakfast, and even internet access. I approach the lady of the house, she replies "Oh no, you must
have spoken with my sister. I am also introduced to the mother of the two. Later I have a meal in the local pub; it is run by two
ladies, though there are a few male customers, too, in the place. But I certainly wonder if "Nomen est Omen" is applicable here...
Another day with fine, bright weather. I leave at 10.30 am and continue my easterly ride into Austria. I cross the border at Burghausen, and they have an impressive "Burg" (German for castle) there:
For a long time today I ride along the Danube river, but a few miles before hitting Vienna I head south and finish this most glorious biking day just outside Baden in Lower Austria. Again this is not the place lots of tourists come to. I first make enquiries about lodgings at Alland, a nice little town of maybe 2500 souls. But after checking on about five different places, all without internet access I resign to the fact that I am totally in the sticks and the locals agree that I would have to head for Baden, 10 miles down the road to find something exotic as internet access in a hotel.
Again the weather is perfect, but it is clear that it will get a bit on the hot side this afternoon. I am off at 9.30 am and take the motorway to cover the last few miles towards Hungary. That country except for the far north is very flat, which allows for high average speeds, but is fairly boring. After just under 600 km I arrive at Ghioroc, a few miles from Arad in Romania. At the hotel Alex has booked there is no Alex, but I am greeted by Daniel, a friend of Alex who has been asked to wait for me. In the evening we drive out to a bar at the local lake where Daniel's dad who is a priest gives us a bottle of homemade plum Ţuică that he has been given for performing a wedding earlier today - and that is very potent stuff.
We are in no fit state to ride a motorbike this morning, especially not while it is already 31 degrees outside when we get up. Dan drops in and has pity on us; instead of motorbiking we decide that the only wise thing to do today is to go back to Lake Ghioroc and sit in the shade drinking mineral water all day. As it is Sunday today, all of Arad appears to have had the same idea; the place is jam-packed. Luckiliy Dan's parents own a business at the lakeshore, so we can use the staff parking lot. So from 11 am until 5 pm we simply chat, drink gallons of water and have the odd bite to eat, while our heads slowly overcome last night's overdose. In the afternoon the mercury shows 36 degrees with not a breath of wind blowing - that's a long shot from the drizzle at 19 degrees they currently have in London...
Today we went from Arad to Sebeș, where we then turned south and drove the Transalpina pass. Here is an impression of that route:
After 350 km we end the day 1600 metres above sea in the town of Novaci. In the valleys the temperature is again far over 30 degrees, but up here it is nice and cool.
More great biking weather today. After yesterdays pass we have appetite for more, so we head east towards the town of Curtea de Argeș. This place is the starting point for biking the Transfăgărășan pass. You have never heard of that pass? Then I'd better show you a picture I made today:
Not bad, that pass, wouldn't you agree? Here is some video showing us biking down that road in above picture:
After all these days of riding the passes we have decided to take it easy once again. And for that there is no better place in Romania than Poiana Brașov. So all we do today is riding those 120 km to that place, check into a good hotel and then take a stroll through the village. What a lazy life...
After two days of hanging out in Poiana Brașov it is time to hit the road again. The hot weather is coming to an end and rain is heading this way. The tough Romanain roads have caused Alex' Suzuki first to shed the bolt that keeps the speedo pickup in place and today the reflector of one of his mirrors just dropped out of the casing and disappeared. Luckily Tigger is made of sterner stuff and so far keeps up admirably. We ride until we reach Sebeș, where we have a break and I say goodbye to Alex. The thermometer reaches 35 degrees this afternoon - a wee bit too warm for comfort that is, even on a motorbike. I leave Romania on the same road I came in and end the day in an (airconditioned) hotel in Szeged after 530 km.
I have crossed all of Hungary today - and Hungary is not very exciting from a motorbikers point of view. Long, straight roads are not really my cup of tea. But after Hungary comes Austria, especially my personal favourite, Lower Austria. Lots of twisting, smooth roads make this one of the most underrated parts of Austria. I end the day at my favourite hangout in this part of the world, the Hotel Steinschaler.
My computer tells me that I have 640 km from here to Switzerland. Normally that would be a comfortable two-day
ride through excellent biker country. Unfortunately today is also the last day of the good weather. Tonight a weather
front moves in with copious amounts of heavy land rain. So I will have to do those 640 km in one day. For this reason
I have planned 200 of those kilometres on motorways.
But of course not here in Lower Austra, here it will be all country roads. My enthusiasm gets a moderate dent when less
than two kilometres from the hotel all traffic is stopped by the Austrian police. There is a pushbike race on and the
cops have blocked the road (without any diversion) for the pushbikers pleasure.
I do not know which bureaucrat has signed the permission for that, but the person must be either corrupt,
incompetent, outright stupid or a combination of the three. How can someone block a public road for the pleasure
of an insignificant minority (the pushbike racers) at the expense of hundreds of ordinary citizens without even
so much as a diversion?
The innocent coppers get a lot of flak from Joe Public about this. They promise that it will just be a few minutes,
they are waiting for the support car that indicates the last bike. After blocking the traffic for 40 minutes
without any support car in sight the cops are in danger of getting lynched by the angry mob, so they simply withdraw and
let the traffic pass. I would suppose that some buraucrat can expect a call from the chief of the local police
tomorrow morning...
I have lost the best part of an hour through this folly and I am biking against time and the approaching rain. However, in spite of the slowly overcasting sky looking ever more threatening I manage to be back in Heidiland by 2000 hours. My weather planning was successfull and during the entire trip I did not have a single drop of rain. 3800 kilometres more are on Tiggers clock - what a great voyage. Here is the altitude profile of this ride:
Below is the usual map with my GPS tracklog and some trip markers.